Leachie aggression...

[smith710]

Ok, I have 2 Leachies, they were completely fine for quite a while, never showed any signs of aggression, a bit nervous at times and a bit jumpy at others, but never any real aggression. 

Basically over night one of the geckos became VERY aggressive.  I actually shouldn't say aggressive because I know he is just very scared.  He starts huffing and puffing like crazy, then come the growling, the noises and everything, and when you reach in there, he whips his head around and tries to take your finger off. 

The other one never has shown any signs of aggression at all, and usually a fairly calm gecko. It didn't start too long ago with this one, but the same thing, basically an overnight thing, just happend out of nowhere.  Now this one is doing the same things, starts huffing and puffing and tries to take your hand off, then come the growling and hissing I guess, and all the other noises basically saying "stay away from me or I'm going to take your finger off". 

Has anybody else experienced it like this with them?  Anything I can do besides the obvious, hold them more and take the bites?  I'm really nervous to take them out now, not just because of the biting, that doesn't bother me so much, but they seem REALLY stressed out, and I don't want to stress them out so much that they stop eating or something else happends. Any suggestions or experience with this?

[smith710]

Oh yeah, and I just wanted to say, I know Leachies can be aggressive and what not, especially if they aren't held very often.  The wierd thing is just that it happend very sudden.

[honuman]

Matt -

How old are they?

[smith710]

They are both around 2 years old.  They were both runts.  The one that is very aggressive was a rescue and is still quite small for his age, but has started growing like a weed, this one is supposed to be a GT, don't know which specific line though. 

The other one took quite a while to start growing, but she's getting big fast now.  She is an Island E.

They were both very small hatchlings and took FOREVER to even get them to gain a gram.  The supposed GT was in very bad condition when I got him, but he is doing VERY well now.

[smith710]

The last time we weighed these two was on January 16th.  The GT was 27g, and the Island E was 54g.  Even though it's only been about a month, I wouldn't be suprised if they gained another 10-20 grams or more, they are seriously growing VERY fast now.  They are both great eaters. They eat as much as a pair of my cresties eat right now.

[portal_reptiles]

i have a breeding pair and at night......dont mess with them, thats when must people get biten..., and are they together??

handling them is good idea even if you need to start by waring gloves...and they bit harder and deeper than a tokay.....can cut your hand wide open, so be careful

[honuman]

i have a breeding pair and at night......dont mess with them, thats when must people get biten..., and are they together??

handling them is good idea even if you need to start by waring gloves...and they bit harder and deeper than a tokay.....can cut your hand wide open, so be careful

My big male tried to chomp me only once.  All of mine are handleable.  They do a lot of growling and squeaking at night -- especially before mating.    I did have to switch females when I found my male with my larger female's head locked in his jaws.  He cut her up a bit but she is fine now and ready to go back for more mating action.

Steve

[smith710]

They aren't together and it doesn't matter if it's day or night, they act the same exact way. I guess all I can do is try and keep holding them then and see what happends.  The smaller one is definitely ALOT more aggressive than the other, but since they were both around 2 years of age, I thought maybe it could be a fase or something they were going through, so I figured I'd see if anybody else had that happen so sudden and if it went away.

[portal_reptiles]

sometimes their just mean.........might be S.O.L.

[Liz]

yeah but they just "turned" mean after like one day that thye just didn't want to come out. The little one is crazy! he comes after you!

[portal_reptiles]

my male stripe started doing the same thing.... But he went back to his tame ways. It started when I gave him pinkys

[smith710]

We've never given the most aggressive one any pinkeys, but have have tried with the other one.  We got her to take it, she chewed it a little and spit it out then started trying to wipe her mouth off, I don't think she liked it.  Then we got her to take it a few more times, but she kept doing the same thing so we just stopped.

[smith710]

Ok, well yesterday we found out that the Island E is striclty cage aggressive, once we got her out of the cage, she was pretty good for quite a while.

[portal_reptiles]

thats good......

[smith710]

Yeah, but the Gt is still a little jerk.  Even when we were able to get him out of the cage, he's still very aggressive. I almost hope this is one of the smaller breeds of the GT, or an Island Leachie in the end if he stays this way... I don't know if I want to deal with a 10 inch SVL gecko who wants me dead.